


No Egg

by toffeecape



Series: Loser Tag [2]
Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik, Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Anxiety, Burns, Childhood, Children, Crossover, Depression, Dragons, Eating Disorders, Family Drama, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Parent-Child Relationship, Psychological Trauma, Puberty, Revolution, Teen Pregnancy, Trauma, parthenogenesis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 12:43:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16018160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toffeecape/pseuds/toffeecape
Summary: Why the Pharaoh wanted her egg to choose Atem.





	No Egg

**Author's Note:**

>   1. This is for Celepom, because [she drew the opening scene before it was written](http://celepom.tumblr.com/post/177955057162/ever-been-3-years-old-and-thought-it-was-a-good). 
>   2. This is also for [Skyisthelimit112](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyisthelimit112/pseuds/Skyisthelimit112), for being my concept beta on this and many more of my YGO fics.
>   3. None of this will make a lick of sense without reading [Find Yourself In Another Part Of The World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15126197/chapters/35073101).
> 


_-Luxor, 2003-_

“Muhra, have you seen Atem? He got out of the house again!”

“He’s over here, Kema! I’ve got my eye on him; you finish what you’re doing.”

“Thank you, dearest.”

Muhra was no stranger to human babies. However, her last two Rafiqs before Kema had not reared any eggs of their own, so it had been a while since she’d watched one grow up close. They developed so _slowly_ compared to dragons! It seemed unfair in a species so short-lived, that they must spend a staggering eighteen years to reach anything even vaguely resembling maturity.

On the other hand, it provided time to enjoy the development process. Her godson Atem was fascinating to observe: at three years old he was still terrifyingly small, barely bigger than a rabbit to Muhra’s eyes, and yet very much a person. He marched purposefully to and fro on his fat little legs, driven by plans and goals of his own. All but born on dragonback, he was totally fearless around Muhra, clambering over her feet or tail when they were in his way as if they were no more consequential obstacles than boulders or tree branches. He chattered under his breath the entire time, excited by whatever idea had found its way into his little baby head.

At length he fixed his gaze on the horizon, and headed for the border of the pavilion like he had no intention of stopping once he reached it.

Muhra turned and crouched so her face was directly behind him, and gently puffed her breath to let him know she was there. It fluttered the skirt of his tiny linen kaftan around his dimpled knees.

“Where are you going, little egg?” she asked, knowing he hated to be called ‘egg’, because he knew very well that was how dragons referred to literal infants. Sure enough, he rounded on her, maroon-brown eyes alight with fury.

“NO EGG!” he shouted, and kicked her in the snout with all his strength.

It had a fraction of the force of one of Kema’s reassuring slaps, but Muhra was still so astonished she burst out laughing. The gust of air knocked Atem over onto his bottom, and after a shocked pause he exploded into loud, angry tears.

“Sorry,” Muhra chuckled, trying to bring her mirth under control, “sorry, little one.”

“Muhra bad,” he blubbered.

“That _was_ bad of me,” she agreed. “Would you like a ride back to the house to see Mama?”

He sniffed and nodded, tears drying up as quickly as they appeared.

Kema was at the door when they returned. “I heard crying,” she said, “is everything alr- Muhra! You know Atem isn’t allowed to ride alone!”

“It’s not like we flew,” Muhra pointed out, “and Atem keeps his seat very well.” She crouched again and Atem clambered down her neck to her foreleg, and then slid to the ground. “And I owed him.”

“Mama!” Atem leapt for Kema, who hoisted him onto her hip with a grunt. “Muhra say I egg but _I_ no egg, and she laugh, and I fall _down!”_ he finished dramatically, flinging out his arms.

“Oh really?” Kema said, grinning.

“He’s leaving out the part where he kicked me in the nose,” Muhra confided.

Kema pressed her lips together, eyes twinkling. After a moment she said, trying to keep the amusement out of her voice, “Atem. Kicking people is not nice.”

Atem drooped. “Yes Mama.”

“And calling people names is not nice either, _Muhra.”_

“Yes, Kema. I apologize, Atem,” Muhra said gravely.

“Sorry Muhra.” Atem burrowed his face into Kema’s chest.

“Looks like someone needs a nap,” Kema said, and carried her son into the house. She could be heard singing softly in Atem’s nursery, and several minutes later she came back out.

“Did he seriously kick you?”

“With all his might. He has a great deal of spirit, just like his mother.”

Kema snickered and shook her head.

They were already speaking quietly, but Muhra dropped her voice further. “Kema. You know how I turned three hundred not long ago.”

“Yes...”

“Well, I think I’ll be ready to go into seclusion soon. Sometime in the next few years.”

“That’s - a broad time frame. Isn't it?”

“What will narrow it is the age at which you would allow Atem to be Rafiq Al’amira.”

Kema’s mouth dropped open. “I’d have thought you would want him for Rafiq Almalika!”

“And he would doubtless be an excellent one, just like you, darling. But one’s first Rafiq is - of paramount importance.” Muhra thought back fondly to her own hatching-day, when she spurned the selection of youths her own mother had suggested and instead sought out the covert master’s daughter. She hadn’t understood that choosing a Muslim (as opposed to a Kemetic) would make waves across the country. She had just wanted something she heard in Radwa’s voice and in none of the others’, the same something that made Radwa get over her shock in about 10 seconds flat, feed her bloody raw lamb without flinching, and name her ‘filly’. “They shape everything that comes later.”

Atem had that same quality. “The final choice will of course be my daughter’s, but I can tell you right now I will advise her to choose Atem.”

Kema rubbed her forehead. “I suppose - eight? I’d let him do it at eight. Then he’d be high-school-aged by the time the Princess was ready to study abroad.”

“Very good. The clone-egg takes a year and a half to hatch, and let’s say about six months of work to make it,” the making was a simple process, actually, but the Tunin-Ra line had kept it secret for over five thousand years and that chain would not break with Muhra, “so I’ll begin when Atem turns six. Goodness, not even three years from now!”

“Gods! All this because he kicked you in the snout?”

“Not only because. But it did tip the scale.” Muhra sat up and peeked through the second-floor window of the nursery. Through the curtains stirring faintly in the breeze from the fan, Atem was a barely-visible lump under the blanket on his little bed. His hair looked bigger than the rest of his curled-up body. “The Pharaoh’s godchild becoming Rafiq Al’amira is a cliche for a reason. If they have what it takes we see it early.”

“It’s only a cliche to you and a few historians. The last time it happened was six hundred years ago.”

“Well then. Everything old is new again!”

* * *

_-Cairo, 2012-_

Kema burst into Muhra’s tent clutching her phone, a look of grim panic on her face. “Mahaad just called me. Atem didn’t come back to their quarters after training with Mana.”

Muhra was looking to the horizon. “Don’t call for a search just yet. I think that might be him coming in on Iskender.” She couldn’t make out even Atem’s hair at such a distance, but she could think of few other humans the retired royal guard would carry anywhere voluntarily. It didn’t escape her notice that they were approaching from a direction that would leave them unseen by the main camp.

By the time Iskender creaked to a landing it was clear that Atem was indeed his passenger. It hurt to see how stiffly he moved as he dismounted and limped toward them: back ramrod-straight to keep pressure off the burn there, trying not to favor his right leg and the graft donor site there. When Kema rushed forward and offered him her arm he took it, and when he reached the tent and sank into a chair he failed to stifle a grunt of pain.

“Egg,” Muhra chided, “you’re supposed to be resting.”

“And why did you not tell Mahaad where you were going?” Kema scolded, already composing a text.

“Don’t tell Mahaad that I’m here,” Atem said, his voice cracking in his hurry.

Kema stilled, and put away her phone slowly, staring at Atem. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want _Mana_ to know I’m here. As far as everyone but you two are concerned, I went for an ill-advised walk around the covert, got stranded by overexerting myself, and hitched a ride back to quarters with Iskender.”

“Why all the secrecy? What’s this about?” Muhra asked.

Atem looked from his mother’s face to Muhra’s, serious expression made more severe by the new pain-lines around his mouth and eyes - a wretchedly-awkward picture with his dry, brittle-looking hair, profusion of acne, and thick glasses (worn almost constantly right now because he didn’t have the energy to go looking for them when he needed them). “Mother. Your Majesty. You need to stop making Mana do Ra-fire drills.”

Kema opened her mouth to argue, but Muhra said evenly, “Why?”

Atem lifted his hand, ticking off his fingers. “First, it’s pointless. The aviation drills you’re having us run? They’re designed to be flown in full formation, to counter _horses_ and _cannons,_ because that was the last time classical aviation was relevant in a pitched battle.

Second, it’s taking time away from our dueling training, which requires the kind of dynamic, small-scale tactics that _are_ actually useful in random fights. It was _because_ of our dueling that Mana _succeeded_ when we rescued Slifer. I don’t understand why everyone’s acting like she failed somehow.” He said this somehow unselfconsciously, even having gone from pubescent-bony to downright gaunt, perched gingerly on the edge of his chair to avoid the backrest, pale with pain. Muhra’s own godson, Kema’s only egg, in this condition! To Muhra he looked like the embodied consequence of all her wrong choices in recent years.

 _“We_ failed, Atem, not her,” Kema blurted, “none of you should have been-"

“Mama,” Atem said, “please let me finish. Nobody could have planned for what happened. It just happened. We all did our best, and actually I think our best was pretty good. But I’m not done with my reasons.

The third and most important reason you have to stop the drills is: they’re very, very bad for Mana.”

“What do you mean?” Muhra asked. “Her performance in the drills has been exemplary.”

“In the drills, maybe, for now, but they’re taking more and more out of her every day. She won’t use her fire around me off the field anymore. Pretty soon I think she won’t be able to force herself to use it with me _on_ the field either, and then m-maybe eventually she won’t even want to fly with me.” His voice wobbled and cracked again.

“Egg,” Muhra said, hushed with horror, _“nothing_ could-"

 _“I’m not done!”_ he shouted, his voice careening down into a startlingly deep register. He took off his glasses to scrub at his eyes. “There’s something else. I need to talk to Muhra about it alone.”

Muhra and Kema looked at each other. Kema nodded and left the tent, looking as deeply troubled as Muhra felt.

“Alright, what is it?”

“Mana barely talks to me, and has stopped talking at all to anyone else. She’s been eating less and less, and stopped completely three days ago. Muhra,” he widened his eyes meaningfully, “she’s _isolating herself._ She’s _stopped eating.”_

Muhra’s heart pounded. She lowered her head until she was level with Atem. “Say exactly what you’re implying, please.”

Atem stated, “You need to stop the drills, or you risk the appearance of a new Tunin-Ra Princess three hundred years ahead of schedule.”

She tried and failed not to growl, “She _told_ you?”

“No! I don’t think the idea that she’s running that risk has even occurred to her. But she doesn’t know that I know, so I can't ask.”

“Then how _do_ you know?”

“Mahaad figured it out a couple of years ago,” Atem said dismissively. “It’s not so different from what several other reptile species do, although in their case they produce males only and it’s a temporary solution that helps them colonize islands.”

Muhra covered her face with her wings. “We - I - _we do not talk about this._ We say aloud how it’s done _once each_ in our whole lives: to our clone-egg.”

“I know. I wouldn’t even have brought it up, but I needed you to understand how serious this is.”

“In that you have succeeded. Kema!” Muhra pitched her voice louder. “You can come back in now!”

Kema looked wildly curious but didn’t pry, at least right then.

“You didn’t need to tell me that,” Muhra said, “though it underscores the urgency. It would have been enough to know that Mana is so miserable. But why didn’t she say anything?”

“Because _she_ thinks she needs to be punished _too.”_ Atem’s voice broke again, but this time because he was dissolving into exhausted tears. Kema sat down beside him and pulled him into her arms; he slumped against her chest, shoulders shaking silently.

“We will stop the drills,” Muhra said, “effective immediately. And I need to have a talk with my daughter.”

Atem turned his face without breaking contact with his mother, looking much younger than twelve. “Are you going to tell her I came to you?”

“If she asks. You’ve done nothing wrong, Atem. Looking out for Mana’s wellbeing is precisely what you are supposed to do - though you shouldn’t have had to protect her like this from _us,”_ Muhra said, bitter with self-recrimination.

Atem frowned. “Like you said, it’s _my_ job. You and Mother have been busy rebuilding Egypt.”

“We have let ourselves get _too_ busy, Atem,” said Kema, stroking his hair. His eyelids fluttered slowly at the contact, like he was having trouble staying awake. “Our family is important too. Maybe we lost sight of that.”

“Will you have dinner at home camp tonight?” Atem asked hopefully. “With Father?”

Kema winced. “I’ll try my-" Muhra cut her off.

“We will be there,” she said firmly, "both of us. That's a promise." 

It was a lucky thing Iskender’s harness allowed even the weakest to ride; Atem looked like he might not stay awake all the way home. His cover story of overexerting himself was nothing but the truth. Iskender swore to deliver him straight to Mahaad. When they were out of sight Kema turned to Muhra.

“How did we let things get this bad?” Her voice was anguished. 

“I think most Egyptians are asking themselves the same question right now, one way or another.” Muhra knew revolution was inevitable three years ago, when the Kul Elnan exiles were massacred in Japan, but after so many years of peace the cost of violent change was freshly hideous to see with her own eyes.

Kema rubbed the back of her neck. “When I was Atem’s age, I don’t think I could even have _thought_ about doing what he just did without soiling myself. And I still had all my skin.”

“He’s very strong. He shouldn’t have to be, but he is.” It was a miracle of humans, the strength they drew from love. A contagious miracle. The reason the Tunin-Ra still ruled in Hatshepsut’s name was because in every generation someone demonstrated what she must have been like.

“This is why you wanted him for Mana, isn’t it.”

“Not this _exactly,_ but - yes. This is what I saw in him. He will shape her, and with her, the future.”

Kema smiled crookedly. “Well, until dinnertime, let’s go shape a better future for them to start from.” They went back inside the tent.


End file.
